St. Louis Blues goaltender Brian Elliott gets his stick on the puck as Toronto Maple Leafs Mike Santorelli tries to find the handle in the first period at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis on Janaury 17, 2015.    Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

St. Louis Blues goaltender Brian Elliott gets his stick on the puck as Toronto Maple Leafs Mike Santorelli tries to find the handle in the first period at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis on Janaury 17, 2015. Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI

Alex Steen pushed his points streak to nine games with a goal and an assist. Brian Elliott picked up his 19th shutout with the Blues in a 3-0 win over Toronto on Saturday. The Blues moved ahead of Chicago into second place in the division, just four points behind Nashville, who is without their star goalie Pekka Rinne for the next four-five weeks. The Blues continue their six game home stand tonight against Colorado and then Thursday night with the Predators before the All-Star break.

Elliott, who leads the NHL with a 1.90 goals-against average and is fourth with a .929 save percentage, made 15 of his 27 saves in the first period of Saturday’s game against Toronto.  Elliott missed nearly five weeks after sustaining a knee sprain Nov. 25 against the Ottawa Senators. Since his return, he’s played in seven games and he’s starting to look like the goalie to Blues coach Ken Hitchcock saw before the injury, telling NHL.com,  “This is, for me, the best he’s played; not just because he got a shutout, but this is the best he’s played since coming back from the injury, for sure. He had work today because we gave up odd-man rushes. We don’t normally do that, but we gave up some. They were interesting odd-man rushes because that’s the first time in a long time where we played a team that was able to create turnovers in their own zone that led to odd-man rushes. He had some saves he had to make today.”

Elliott’s 19 white washes are one less than the franchise record held by Jaroslav Halak.

“I just wanted to kind of take the ‘no prisoners’ approach,” Elliott said. “Just go out there and worry about my own game and everybody else takes care of the rest outside of me, and I was able to do that.”